The first call-up 10/12

October 12th, 2012

That didn’t take long. With Jayson Megna banged up and Steve MacIntyre rounding into game shape, Adam Payerl was called up from the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers on Friday. Of the four forwards sent to Wheeling in last cuts (Chupp, Kuhnhackl and Uher were the others) I’d say Payerl had the best training camp, so it makes sense to me.

Meanwhile, between print and online, it feels like we’ve examined every aspect of the Penguins since camp opened a few weeks ago, but one thing has escaped discussion by and large.

There’s a game tomorrow night and there will be another team on the ice at that point.

In this case, it’s the Binghamton Senators. The B-Sens have lost some key veteran performers from last season – Corey Locke, Mark Parrish and Rob Klinkhammer come immediately to mind – but they have some really high-end exciting prospects like defenseman Jared Cowen and Swedish youngsters Mika Zibanejad and Jakob Silvferburg.

Add in the fact that Binghamton has a new coach in Luke Richardson and it’s difficult to predict much about how the B-Sens will play. I asked coach John Hynes what he thought about going into a game without much of a scouting report on the opponent.

“It’s tough to do a lot of scouting in the preseason,” he said. “It’s really one of those situations where each team comes in with their identity and they’re trying to impose their will on the other team and dictate how the game’s going to go. It’s always a game too where you’re really adjusting as the game goes on because you don’t have a lot of fore knowledge.”

You could sense a little excitement in Hynes’ voice in the last part of that quote because that’s part of coaching he really enjoys – making tactical adjustments on the fly.

“It is fun,” he said. “You’re doing that anyway in the regular season because teams are changing and adapting all the time, but this one, there’s a little more excitement just because it’s the first one.”

I’m on football duty today, so this is based way more on conjecture than actual reporting, but I figured this would be a good time to take a crack at guessing what the opening-night lineup will look like.

After looking at Wheeling’s Opening Day Roster, I was wondering if Wheeling might send a defenseman down to Wheeling when Bortuzzo is healthy. They currently have 5 defensemen with a 6th on the 21 day IR.

A winner of first-place honors in the blogging category of the 2012 Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors awards, Penguins Insider was created to give local hockey fans an interactive, in-depth way to follow the team they so passionately support. The blog's author, beat writer Jonathan Bombulie, has been covering the team since its inception in 1999. Contact him at jbombulie@aol.com

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